


The Consort

by obsessivemuch



Category: Frank Herbert's Children of Dune (2003)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Sibling Incest, Yuletide, Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-24
Updated: 2007-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:38:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1634384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsessivemuch/pseuds/obsessivemuch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Farad'n reflects on his dysfunctional relationship with Leto and Ghanima, outsider yet closest to them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Consort

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ilyena-sylph (ilyena_sylph)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/gifts).



 

 

* * *

Their aborted marriage is less than a day old when Farad'n wakes to find his betrothed in his bed. She twists around him, icy and flirtatious and shy, and he realizes they are not alone as he remembers Alia and Paul with a sinking heart. A cold chill runs up his spine as he see the Lady Jessica on her face, Bene Gesserit through and through, and in the end, he can't perform the function she has come to him for. He escapes the cloying atmosphere for the first balcony, drinking in the fresh air and trying to banish her grandmother from his thoughts.

"You were given a task," Leto says smoothly, his voice rolling through the darkness.

"She's not ready," Farad'n answers, aware of the partial truth.

"No." The Atreides leans casually against the rail and stares across the sand without a readable expression and Farad'n realizes all his training at the Lady Jessica's knee is for naught because he cannot read these mysterious twins. "You are the one who is not ready. Do not attribute your shortcomings to Ghanima."

Farad'n feels like a child being lectured. "She does not want me, my lord."

He does not contradict Farad'n's statement. "And you do not want the granddaughter," Leto says and laughs as though he sees the heat creeping up Farad'n's skin. "But you have been trained to accept your duty, Corrino prince." 

The words sting, sharp and needling in a way that reminds Farad'n of his mother. His title sounds pompous on Leto's tongue, but he hears the sliver of mocking sarcasm at the same time. If Farad'n is prince, Leto is Emperor. He tries not to let his discomfort show. Leto has given him his sister and he will not be weak. "Tonight, I felt like Ghanima wasn't there."

"Ghanima is more present than when you first knew her. She is whole."

"Because you returned." Leto does not deny the truth.

"Had I not returned, you would be dead, Farad'n. Never forget that. Ghanima is the Atreides lioness, quick to defend the lion and the House and the Golden Path. As I would die for her, she would die for me."

"Where do I fit into your plans?" Farad'n sees the missing piece of Leto's disclosure.

"You are not ready for the truth," Leto says and disappears into the sand.

Ghanima's hands encircle him from behind, her head rests on his shoulder, and she stares ahead at the sand, looking for her brother. "He runs," she says quietly, sorrowfully.

* * *

The next day Farad'n strides into the empty throne room and finds Leto at Ghanima's feet, his head in her lap. Her chin rises proudly at his presence and she is Queen, ruling her kingdom and his heart already. "Chani," Leto scolds and Farad'n's heart freezes in his chest. "Forgive my sister and I. It is an old game," he says, getting to his feet and reaching for Farad'n's hands.

Farad'n tries not to let his revulsion show at the hardened skin or the way it brushes against his skin, leaving indentations that show he has been marked. "You called, my lord."

"I wondered if you wished to accompany us to see Stilgar. I have a task I must do and I find I cannot face it without Ghani at my side. We have been separated too much lately, I fear."

He reads the warning in the words though and sees the softening in Ghanima's face as she looks at Leto. "Will you come, Farad'n?" she asks, but he hears the order that Leto does not have to give. She takes Leto's arm without reacting to the feel of his flesh under her fingers. She wears triumph in her eyes at his weakness. 

"If you wish, my lady."

"I am not my grandmother," she says tartly and he flushes, wondering what Leto has confided to his sister.

* * *

It is days before he sees Ghanima again. Leto bestows the title of Royal Scribe on Farad'n and keeps him close, allows him to ask the questions he needs to ask about the Golden Path. Farad'n's thirst for knowledge, to understand this Golden Path binds him closer to the Emperor.

The next time he sees Ghanima, she is outside the palace on a cliff that overlooks the desert, watching Leto run. Farad'n hates the sight of sand already, misses his home world, but he remembers the lessons the Lady Jessica taught. She gave up everything to come and live on this planet once upon a time. She did it for love of Leto I. Now he must make the same sacrifice though he does not know if love is a part of the deal.

"He runs and runs and runs and when he's exhausted himself, he returns to me, puts his head in my lap, and asks me to help him find a way to die."

This insight into Leto is more than ten days of following him around has done yet for Farad'n so he asks, "Why does he want to die?"

"To save himself from the sacrifices he must make, sacrifices for the future of us all."

Her words give him hope, hope that he has dared not feel since the night Leto told him that he wasn't ready. "Then there is a place for me in this future?"

"Your blood was spared the day Leto came back to me."

"What of our marriage then?"

The look Ghanima gives him as she finally looks in his direction is disdainful yet somehow kind. "As my mother was not wife, you shall never be husband."

Farad'n understands immediately, swallows. Everything Leto has shown him up to this point made the conclusion obvious days ago, but Farad'n does not accept the truth until Ghanima spells it out for him. "Politics."

"Politics." She smirks and he looks away. "But in time there may be love." The hope that springs forth in his chest is almost too much. The sadness Ghanima wears on her face does not check his feelings. "Which is more than my brother will ever have." She looks away toward the sand. "One of us had to accept the agony and he was always the stronger." 

There is nothing Farad'n can say to Ghanima. He does not understand and knows that it is not possible to understand what the twins suffer at the hands of their bloodline. But when she comes to his bed that night, he is finally ready.

* * *

"He is my brother. He is my husband. He is my emperor," Ghanima says in rote. 

Farad'n is slowly becoming used to her devotion to Leto though he does not share her belief or her faith in Atreides, but Ghanima has bound him tightly to her, stolen his heart from his chest with her promises of love one day. "And what am I?"

"You will be the father of my children." It is an answer he has heard over and over again, but though Ghanima shares his bed, she does not conceive and he wonders how that affects her brother's plans.

"The children of House Corrino and House Atreides."

"No," she replies firmly, shaking her golden head. 

"House Atreides."

"It is the superior bloodline." Ghanima's eyes narrow, watching him carefully for betrayal. She waits for him to turn on Leto, to betray his trust so that she might gut him with the knife she wears at her hip.

Her fealty to Leto no longer surprises him, but Ghanima lets him get away with more than she is aware of, reminding him that there might be love indeed if he's patient. "All I am is a pawn in your brother's breeding program." His arch tone sounds mocking even to his ears, but she does not run him through this time either.

Her eyes flash. "You are the Royal Scribe and the one he selected for my heart."

"There's no room in your heart," he says, dangerously close to insulting them both. He suspects that he wouldn't ever know that he was dead if he went too far.

But she relaxes and laughs. "There is room, Farad'n. I am the mother of all things."

He glimpses something, no, someone else in her eyes and swallows uncomfortably. "You do not question him," he accuses.

Her eyes change and she withdraws into herself. "I question him in many things, but I do not question the Golden Path. His faith is enough for me to believe as well. Brother, husband, Emperor," she repeats. "You should accept it."

* * *

On the day Ghanima announces to the court that she is with child, the applause rings through the hall. She carries the heir within, something the Council thought would never happen. Farad'n watches Ghanima, but her gaze is only for Leto and his smile of approval, her hand resting on her abdomen. This should be the happiest moment of his life, but his love is sharing it with her brother, her husband, her emperor. And though he accepted it long ago, he still wishes it was different.

"Beloved," Leto intones, the word a knife to Farad'n's gut. 

 


End file.
